December 5, 1806

The Breckinridge Mill

Breckinridge Mill, located near Catawba Creek in Botetourt County, is a remnant of the grain and milling industry that figured significantly in the economy of antebellum Virginia. One of the oldest mills in the region, the multi-level brick structure was erected in 1822 by James Breckinridge, a leading Federalist politician and landowner of southwestern Virginia, who lived in a mansion (since destroyed) nearby. The mill replaced an 1804 mill also erected by Breckinridge. ^[2]“Breckinridge Mill”, Virgina Department of Historic Resources (13 March 2026), www.dhr.virginia.gov/historic-registers/011-0187/, accessed 9 October 2026.

In 1806, Lewis passed by the 1804 mill and house of James Breckinridge—a staunch Federalist and vocal opponent of Thomas Jefferson and his policies. The mill shown above was built in 1822.

Seeking a Wife

In late 1807, Lewis would return to the Catawba Creek area on his way to St. Louis to resume his duties as the governor of the Upper Louisiana Territory. As indicated in a letter to his good Philadelphia friend, Mahlon Dickerson, Lewis was looking for a wife at this time:

Albermarle November 3rd 1807

Dear Dickerson,

[I] am now a perfect widower with rispect to love. Thus floating on the surface of occasion, I feel all that restlessness, that inquietude, that certain indiscribable something common to old bachelors, which I cannot avoid thinking my dear fellow, proceeds, from that void in our hearts, which might, or ought to be better filled. Whence it comes I know not, but certain it is, that I never felt less like a heroe than at the present moment. What may be my next adventure god knows, but on this I am determined, to get a wife.

Meriwether Lewis

Meeting Letitia Breckinridge

A letter from Lewis’s brother Reuben indicates that Lewis thought he had found the candidate wife he was looking for—the daughter of James Breckinridge mentioned previously:

[29 November 1807]

[Mary Marks]

We arrived at this place on this day week and on the next day had the pleasure of seeing the accomplished and beautiful Miss Letticia Breckenridge one of the most beautiful women I have ever ween, both as to form and features. But unfortunately for his Excellency [Meriwether Lewis] she left the neighborhood 2 days after arrival so that he was disappointed in his design of addressing her . . . I should have liked to have her as sister.

[Reuben Lewis]^[3]Quoted in Letters of the Lewis and Clark Expedition with Related Documents: 1783–1854, ed. Donald Jackson (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1978), 2:721n2.

Another Chapter of Accidents

That Lewis was smitten by Letitia Breckinridge is revealed in a personal letter to his friend William Preston:

July 25th. 1808

St. Louis

Your favor of the 11th. inst. from Nashville has been duly received.⁶ — how wretchedly you married men arrange the subjects of which you treat. I am induced to believe from the date of your letter and the arrangement of the subject matter, that you must have been engaged in compiling toasts for the fourth of July, in which, the great dirth of gallantry among our countrymen has very uniformly consigned the recollection of the fair, to the last glass, and the last haza! — you have gained that which I have yet to obtain, a wif; pardon me therefore for begining where you left off. you run through a sheet of paper about your musty fusty trade, your look out for land speculations without locallity or interest in your old friends, a flimsy excuse about the want of money to enable you to come and see us &c &c before you came to the point. then she is off, passed — off the hooks, I mean in a matrimonial point of view; be it so, the die is cast, may god be with her and her’s, and the favored angels of heaven guard her bliss both here and/ and hereafter, is the sincere prayer of her very sincere friend, to whom she has left the noble consolation of scratching his head and biting his nails, with ample leasure to ruminate on the chapter of accedents in matters of love and the folly of castle-building. well, I find it an amusing study notwithstanding admirably calculated to kill time, and when I find myself without employment I will begin again.

— Gamble is a good tempered, easy honest fellow, I have known him from a boy; both his means and his disposition well fit him for sluming away life with his fair one in the fassionable rounds of a large City. such is the life she has celected and in it’s pursuit I wish she may meet all the pleasures of which it is susceptable. I consider Miss E — B — a charming girl, but such was my passion for her sister, that my soul revolts at the idea of attempting to make her my wife, and shall not consequently travel that road in quest of matrimony. so much for love, now in order I shall take up friendship, then treat of land speculations money making and other matters of minor importance. —

Your sincere friend

Meriwether Lewis.^[4]“Two Letters of Meriwether Lewis to Major William Preston”, James R. Bently, ed., Filson Club History Quarterly 44 no. 2 (1970), 170–75. The Filson, accessed 9 October 2026.

Earlier historians have interpreted the preceding source documents to say that Lewis had come on too strong—overplayed his hand. This historian sees the opposite. There is no evidence that he came on at all. Reuben states that she left before he could, and he likely didn’t pursue the matter. He simply folded his hand.

Latitude, Longitude and Giant Sloths

Philada. Decr. 5. 1806

Dr Sir [Thomas Jefferson]

Permit me to offer you my most Cordial & Sincere Congratulations on the return of Captains Lewis & Clarke, we have experienced here the most anxious solicitude respecting them, & the greatest Curiosity as to their discoveries—May we beg you to specify (if you think it proper) in your next letter to any of the Society, the general Course of the Missouri, or the latitude & longitude of the falls—

your affectionate friend

C. Wistar Junr.^[5]Founders Online, National Archives, founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/99-01-02-4633

Wistar’s letter also discusses a new fossil unearthed by Dr. Goforth who worked with Lewis at Big Bone Lick in 1803. Wistar questions Daniel Clark’s assertion that the clawed foot of one specimen is 4 ½ feet wide. Nevertheless, the two men are likely discussing fossils of a megalonyx—a species unearthed in 1796 by John Stuart of Staunton, Virginia. See Jefferson’s Megalonyx and for longitude and latitude, see Jefferson’s Debt Paid at Last.

For more than a decade, Jefferson, Wistar, and their fellow scientists, had only bone fragments to work with and could not conceive the animal’s likeness to the degree shown in the figure. The concept of extinction was not well-understood at the time, and it was generally thought that Lewis and Clark could find live mastodons and megalonyxes. See Thoughts on Extinction.